OPIN­ION

We had a lot less stuff when I first got started, and I still think a lot of the older guys can out­fish ev­ery­one else with just a bot­tom ma­chine and a com­pass. And some­times peo­ple rely too much on hav­ing the lat­est tech­nol­ogy. You still need to fish where the fish are, get the bites and hook what you see, and it takes team­work and co­or­di­na­tion be­tween the cap­tain, an­gler and mate. There’s no sub­sti­tute for ex­pe­ri­ence. We’re not pi­lot­ing the space shut­tle — we’re go­ing fish­ing.

CAPT. CHRIS STARRS, SAILS CALL IZTAPA, GU­ATEMALA

Tech­nol­ogy has cer­tainly con­trib­uted to much of our suc­cess. I think I speak for a lot of cap­tains when I say that a good chart plot­ter, a qual­ity VHF ra­dio, and a satel­liteim­agery map are our bread and but­ter. What was once a blind­folded roll of the dice is now more of a cal­cu­lated gam­ble — even a cer­tainty that you can find fish. Be­ing able to process the daily chloro­phyll and sea­sur­face-tem­per­a­ture maps to make the right choice, while still re­ly­ing on in­for­ma­tion from other cap­tains to help you work an area, is how you catch an in­sane amount of bill­fish.

CAPT. GER­ARD “FROTHY” DE SILVA, HARD PLAY TOBAGO, WEST INDIES

I have some ba­sics in which I truly trust: My fish finder to lo­cate bait, tem­per­a­ture breaks and to see the bot­tom struc­ture, and my chart plot­ter to work around struc­ture. I usu­ally visit a few web­sites for up­dates on the lat­est weather fore­cast and sea­sur­face-tem­per­a­ture charts as well as to get de­tails on tide and moon phase. How­ever, I must ad­mit that my suc­cess is mostly based on pure in­stinct and ad­just­ing to the con­di­tions that I en­counter dur­ing the day off­shore. While I believe mod­ern tech­nol­ogy can help us in many ways, I also think trust­ing your in­stincts, knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence, and be­ing aware of your sur­round­ings are just as im­por­tant.

CAPT. JAY KA­VANAGH, BITE ME HAT­TERAS, NORTH CAROLINA

No, I don’t think tech­nol­ogy is over­rated: I take full ad­van­tage of every bit of in­for­ma­tion I can get my hands on re­gard­ing the wa­terand weather-fore­cast con­di­tions. I am for­tu­nate to fish with some of the best cap­tains in the world, many of whom are very in­stinc­tual and who have been fish­ing long be­fore much of to­day’s tech­nol­ogy ex­isted. I am con­stantly amazed by how in tune they are with their in­stincts. But I am not a very in­stinc­tual fish­er­man, so I rely more on tech­nol­ogy. As an owner/op­er­a­tor char­ter fish­er­man, I don’t have an un­lim­ited bud­get, so I rely on stuff that’s in the public do­main.